1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a biochemical detection unit. Particularly, the present invention relates to a biochemical detection unit having a photoconductor and a biochemical device having the biochemical detection unit.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Generally speaking, biochips refer to applicable biochemical analysis products manufactured with materials such as glass, silicon chip, or plastic through microelectronics or/and micromechanical industrial technologies, wherein the intended target subjects of the biochips may include genes, proteins, cell structures, or any other separable compounds from the environment. The main characteristic of biochip technologies lies in the high credibility and accuracy levels of its analyses, the fast analysis speed, the low usage of samples and reagents in analyses, and the procurement capabilities of holistic (parallel) experimental data.
The conceptual source of biochips originated in the late '80s of the 20th century where many western research units realized that the development and application of biochips—products realized from the integration of microelectronics, micromechanics, life science, and bioinformation—would inevitably cause a biotechnological revolution in the 21th century. Overall, although international biochip research is still in the early developmental stages, several important and major achievements have already been accomplished, such as gene chips (DNA chip, Microarray), protein chips, Microfluidics, and Lab-on-a-chip. Among these different research branches, gene chip is furthest along in development. Presently, biochips mentioned in academic research or in the biotechnology industry refer mostly to gene chips.
Gene chips can be classified into two types depending on the DNA sample preparation methods. The first type is prepared by light-directed synthesis, developed by Affymetrix Incorporated, which is a combination of chemical synthesis and photolithography. The second type is prepared by contact printing, developed by Stanford University, which involves fixating in high density pre-synthesized DNA to glass slides with robotic arms at high speeds. This form of high density chip formation is commonly known as Microarray and is currently the most popular industry.
International Standards of Gene Microarray involves spotting the probes onto the surface of a chemically coated glass slide in manner of high density so that a typical amount in the range of thousands or tens of thousands of DNA or cDNA are fixated thereof, while the sample for testing is the nucleic acids of the cDNA (target). The glass slide and the sample then undergo hybridization. Due to the fact that DNA double helices have specific complementary characteristics that are analogous to a zipper's characteristic, the targeted nucleic acids in the sample will bind to the cDNA microarray at the spotting of the probe containing the complementary nucleic acid sequence by means of hybridization. Then, after washing away any unhybridized nucleic acids in the sample, the spots where hybridization had occurred may be recorded through utilizing labeling objects (such as fluorescence, radiation, enzyme reaction colorization) contained in the probes for further scanning and analysis.
Since there may be thousands or tens of thousands of gene spots on a biochip, the colored pattern formed by the labeling object requires proper recordation and comparison. As well, the colored pattern may change according to the duration of reaction. Therefore, a great challenge in Microarray technology is comparison of the color variance and the determination of hybridization spots. Based on the mentioned challenges above, the present invention provides a reasonable and effective design to overcome said challenges.